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Saturday, February 21, 2009

These Books were made for Walking meme

Is there a place that you have always dreamed of visiting specifically because of a book you read? It can be any kind of book: fiction, non-fiction, travelogue, you name it. If you have been to the place, did it live up to your expectations? If you haven't been, do you think you'll ever make it there?

Strumpet and I actually have the same city as at least part of our response, but because of different books!

I have wanted to go to St Petersburg since reading Paullina Simon's fantastic trilogy that starts with The Bronze Horseman. I can't tell you how much that book captured my imagination and made me want to go to Russia, and if I could make it during the White Nights of the Russian summer then that would be totally fantastic too! It certainly didn't hurt that not long after reading TBH, I then read Anna Karenina, which is predominantly also set in St Petersburg, but a hundred or so years earlier. Click here for images of St Petersburg.

I love it when reading a book makes me want to go there! There was a time after reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, I so wanted to go to Tuscany again. Not just a little bit, but desperately, desperately! I know that going cyber touring isn't the same as actually being there, but I am grateful that it is possible to just click on links and find all kinds of images to further whet the appetite.

In some ways there are lot of places that I would love to go back to as well as new places to go to. After reading Sharon Kay Penman's books, I would love to go to Wales for the first time, but there are so many books that I have read that make me want to go to plaes where I have been before because I think I would appreciate the history, and the experience so much more than I did when I was 24 and travelling the world. I am sure if I was to go to a lot of the same places again now it would be a totally different experience than it was back then!

While I have been lucky enough to travel quite a lot, my life is in a far different place now, and even though my feet get very itchy some times I have pretty much resolved myself to the fact that for the time being I am not really going to be going anywhere! Cyber tourism will have to do for me for now.

St. Petersburg is one of my very favourite cities in the world (although it's not tourist-friendly, so if you don't speak/read basic Russian, you'll probably have a lot more problems)! I haven't heard of that series, but now I definitely want to read it-thanks for blogging about it! :D

I'd love to go to Egypt after reading Elizabeth Peters' Peabody books - before I read them, I had zero interest in Egypt, and now I really really want to go and see the Pyramids and experience Cairo and all that!

Lol, oh the irony! For as long as I can remmeber I've wanted to visit Ireland but since I just finished reading Greyfriar's Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson I think I would really rather go to Scotland instead!

Ah! Yes! Tuscany!! That movie is fabulous ... I sometimes browse villas for rent, in the hopes that I could go somewhere that charming! For now it's on the cyber-travel list only though. Can't imagine it would be very romantic and lovely with the kids!

I have never seen the movie or read the book. I have to move this one up my TBR list. Reading definitely makes me want to visit many places, with Venice/ Florence, Paris and England topping the list.I would love to just travel the world, to be honest :)

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About Me

My adventures through time and place, all without leaving the pages of my book. Reading is what I do to relax and escape, and talking about reading is my favourite hobby. You might find me immersed in historical fiction or romance, young adult, a mystery or a fantasy, but you can be sure that whereever I am, I will have a book with me!

If you have read and reviewed a book that I have reviewed, then please, feel free to add your link in the comment for that post and I will add your link into the body of the post so that other readers will be able to see what you thought as well.